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Johnny English Reborn
Johnny English Reborn is a 2011 British spy comedy film parodying the James Bond secret agent genre and film franchise reboots. The film is the sequel to Johnny English (2003), and stars Rowan Atkinson reprising his role as the titular character and directed by Oliver Parker. The film is slightly darker than the previous film, but still contains Atkinson's signature humor. Plot Years later after Johnny English saved the United Kingdom from Pascal Sauvage following the events of Johnny English, English has been hiding in Tibet following a botched mission in Mozambique (during which he failed to protect the newly-elected president) when he is summoned by MI7. Under his new boss Pamela Thornton, codename "Pegasus", he is put on a mission to investigate a plot to assassinate the Chinese Premier during scheduled talks with the Prime Minister. He meets fellow agent and old acquaintance Simon Ambrose, MI7's resident quartermaster, Patch Quartermain, and junior agent Colin Tucker, who will be English's new assistant. In Hong Kong, English finds former CIA agent Titus Fisher, who reveals himself to be a member of Vortex, a group responsible for sabotaging English's Mozambique mission. He reveals Vortex holds a secret weapon that requires three metal keys to unlock, owned by himself and two other former spies. However, when he reveals his key, Fisher is killed by an elderly woman disguised as a cleaner, and assassin named Ling steals the key. English chases him across Hong Kong, by means of easy solutions to hazardous routes the thief takes, for example, when Ling slowly climbs down bamboo scaffolding, English simply uses the lift. However, English is outwitted by another Vortex operative disguised as a flight attendant en route back to London, and is humiliated in a meeting with the Foreign Secretary and Pegasus when he attempts to present the key and the plans. He then mistakes Pegasus' mother to be the assassin disguised as a cleaner and attacks her at Pegasus' daughter's birthday party. Kate Sumner, MI7's behavioral psychologist, uses hypnosis to help English recall his suppressed memory of the Mozambique incident, revealing another Vortex operative, Russian spy Artem Karlenko, who is masquerading as millionaire Sergei Pudovkin. English and Tucker meet Karlenko at an exclusive golf course outside London. However, mid-game, the cleaner assassin critically injures Karlenko. English and Tucker try to bring him to a nearby hospital via a helicopter, but Karlenko dies upon reaching the hospital. However, he manages to pass his key to them and says the final key is held by a member of MI7 before he dies. Over dinner, English confides with Ambrose about the mole. Ambrose confides with English that he suspects Quartermain is the traitor. Tucker later confronts Ambrose about him being the mole, but English dismisses Tucker and lets Ambrose go free, giving him Karlenko's key. At a nearby church, English confronts Quartermain, but realizes he has been framed as the traitor. He manages to escape from MI7 agents and hides at Sumner's flat. When reviewing the footage of the Mozambique mission, Sumner realizes the assassin has been manipulated by Vortex via a mind control drink-like drug known as timoxeline barbebutenol. Later, Ambrose comes to pick Sumner up, and English hides where he realizes Ambrose is the mole after briefly recalling his memory in Mozambique. The cleaner assassin comes to the apartment to execute English, but he manages to escape through a garbage chute and makes for Tucker's apartment. In Tucker's house, English persuades him to rejoin him to infiltrate Le Bastion, a fortress in the Swiss Alps where the talks are to be held, after apologizing for his mistake. In the fortress, however, English accidentally activates a distress beacon that alerts the guards of the fortress to their presence. Left with no choice, English commands Tucker to knock him out, so that the both of them may go up to the fortress. Having been taken into the fortress, English manages to get out of the body bag and warns Pegasus of the threat, but unknowingly imbibes the drink containing the drug. Ambrose, at the scene, commands English to subdue Pegasus. Assigning English to be the Prime Minister's bodyguard in place of Pegasus, Ambrose orders him to kill the Chinese Premier using a pistol disguised as lipstick, which was initially designed for Pegasus. However, English tries to resist the drug and prevent himself from shooting the premier. Tucker arrives and interrupts Ambrose's communication feed briefly before Ambrose resets the communication, exposing himself to be the mastermind to the others in the process. English resists again and shoots Ambrose, who escapes, but the drug enters its lethal stage, and English loses consciousness. Sumner arrives and is able to revive English with a kiss. English then pursues Ambrose down the mountainside and both fight in a cable car. English manages to overpower Ambrose for a while, but accidentally falls out the carriage. Ambrose shoots at English, who tries to use his spy umbrella as a bulletproof shield, but is soon revealed to be a rocket launcher when he closes it. The rocket launcher destroys the carriage, killing Ambrose in a fiery explosion. Later on, Vortex is shut down and English is to have his knighthood reinstated by the Queen. During the ceremony, the cleaner assassin appears and attempts to kill English again while disguised as the Queen, which leads English to accidentally attack the real Queen, revealing when the real killer cleaner is finally caught by the royal guards. Later, English is seen making a takeaway meal for Sumner while listening to the tune of "In the Hall of the Mountain King". Cast * Rowan Atkinson as MI7 Agent Sir Johnny English * Gillian Anderson as MI7 Head "Pegasus" Pamela Thornton * Dominic West as Simon Ambrose * Daniel Kaluuya as Agent Colin Tucker * Pik-Sen Lim as the Killer Cleaner * Janet Whiteside as Mrs Thornton * Joséphine de La Baume as Madeleine * Burn Gorman as Slater * Rosamund Pike as Kate Sumner * Richard Schiff as Titus Fisher * Tim McInnerny as Patch Quartermain * Togo Igawa as Ting Wang * Chris Jarman as Michael Tembe * Tasha de Vasconcelos as Countess Alexandra * Ian Shaw as Agent 2 * Stephen Campbell Moore as Prime Minister * Miles Jupp as an MI7 lab technician Production Universal Pictures first announced that they were producing a sequel to Johnny English on 8 April 2010, seven years following the first film. Filming began on 11 September 2010 in Central London at Cannon Street, with further production scheduled for the week beginning 13 September 2010 at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire and later in Hawley Woods in Hampshire, Macau and Hong Kong. Filming took place on The Mall in Central London on 25 September 2010. The Johnny English Theme from the original film is used throughout the score. Reception The film received negative to mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 39% of 74 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.7 out of 10. The website's consensus is "Arguably a marginal improvement on its mostly-forgotten predecessor, Johnny English Reborn nonetheless remains mired in broad, tired spy spoofing that wastes Rowan Atkinson's once considerable comedic talent". Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 47 based on 19 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a B on an A plus to F scale. On the Australian television programme At the Movies, Margaret Pomeranz rated the film 3 stars and David Stratton rated the film 2 stars (the highest being 5 stars). The Indian film critic Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India gave the film a positive review praising Atkinson's characteristic flair for comedy once again giving it a 4 star rating out of 5. Category:Films